Bayswater Mill,
Bayswater Road

On the south side of Bayswater Brook just before it passes under the Bayswater Road is a track running eastwards through the Bayswater Farm mobile home park, where (a little higher than the brook) lies this eighteenth-century watermill, now converted into a house. It is built of coursed square limestone rubble, with an old plain tile roof. The front has two original entrances with a stable door.

At the time of the Domesday Book, two watermills belonged to the Manor
of Headington, and one of them may well have been here at Bayswater. Between 1221 and 1229 two grants were made to Osney Abbey of land near a watercourse on which to build a mill: this again was probably near this site. In 1331 the miller here was presented for taking toll beyond the assize.

In 1876 Digby Latimer, the Lord of the Manor of Heddington [sic] and current owner of the farm and mill, but them up for sale, and on 20 May 1876 the following advertisement appeared in Jackson's Oxford Journal:

Sandhill and Bayswater, near Oxford.
VERY DESIRABLE FREEHOLD & TITHE-FREE PROPERTIES;
Comprising an attractive Estate of 59A. 2R. 12P. of excellent Arable and Pasture Land, with good Farm House and numerous Agricultural Buildings thereon, known as “Sandhill Farm,” now in the occupation of Mr. James Tagg; also the Water Corn Mill (with Ten-horse-power Auxiliary Steam Engine), working four pairs of stones, and known as “Bayswater Mill,” and a Piece of Orchard and Meadow Land, together 5A. 2R. 34P., situate in the parish of Forest Hill, Oxon, occupied by Mr. W. Tagg; and Four Freehold Cottages, with Barn, Stable, and Piece of Garden Ground, near to Sandhill, but in the parish of Headington, Oxon, tenanted by Mrs. Ing and others;

TO BE SOLD BE AUCTION, BY JONAS PAXTON, SON, & CASTLE,
At the Roebuck Hotel, Oxford, on Wednesday, May 31, 1876, at Three o'clock in the afternoon (by direction of the Trustees of the late Mr. James Tagg.)

To gentlemen desirous of purchasing for occupation this compact little Estate presents great attractions, as the soil is particularly heathy in character, the elevation high, and affording excellent sites for the erection of another residence if required. The estate commands extensive and charming views of the neighbourhood of Oxford, and it is thickly studded with fine timber trees, alike ornamental and valuable. The land is undulating, and comprises a considerable extent of pasture, and with the stream of water, pond, and fruit trees has only to be seen to be admired.

Its situation with respect to Oxford gives it the conveniences and advantages of close intercourse with that University and City without losing the pleasures and charms of country life. Several Meets of Lord Macclesfield's Fox Hounds are within three or four miles.

It also offers an excellent opportunity for investment, as the situation of the property being a comparatively short distance from the City will always command a choice of tenants at a good rental.

Mr. Tagg, at Sandhill Farm, will show the property at any time previous to the auction….

The relevant lot in the auction was described
thus:

Lot 2: A Valuable Freehold Water and Steam “Corn Mill”, known
as “Bayswater Mill”…. It is substantially built of stone
and slated, possessing Store Room for about 500 Quarters of Corn, and
is well fitted with good Machinery, including Bolting, Dressing, and
Smut Machines, and Hoisting Gear. Two Pairs of Stones are worked by
Water Power and driven by an Iron Wheel of 21ft. diameter, and Two Pairs
of Stones are worked by Steam. The Engine is of 10-Horse Power, with
Cornish Boiler nearly new, and fitted by Lampitt of Banbury and is in
capital condition.
Also a Two-Stall Stable and Piece of Orchard
Ground, and an Inclosure of Meadow Land, the whole being together 5a. 2r. 34p….
The Mill is situate in a business district, and for many years a good
trade has been carried on by the late Proprietor and his Son, the present
tenant, Mr. W. Tagg. Possession can be had at Michaelmas.

Plan and plates relating to this auction are available in the Oxfordshire History Centre (FORE/621.21 (Paxton no.120) (D18 B11)).

Bayswater Mill ceased functioning as a watermill in about 1898.

The site is on the borderline of Headington and Forest Hill parishes and appears in the nineteenth-century censuses under Forest Hill & Shotover rather than Headington, even though it lay in the ecclesiastical parish of St Andrew's in Old Headington.

Owners of the mill

Before the Dissolution Osney Abbey owned the mill.

Under the Headington Enclosure Award of 1804, one of the many plots awarded
to William Jackson was
No. 44, comprising just over thirteen acres in Sandhill Field to
the east of Bayswater Road. This land, which came under the Manor of Heddington based at Headington House, would have
included the eighteenth-century watermill on the Bayswater Brook.

In 1795 the Manor of Heddington (including this land and mill) was inherited
by Mary Jones; and in 1815 by
Edward Latimer. In 1830 Latimer
unsuccessfully prosecuted Joseph Simmonds, a labourer of Headington, for
stealing a bushel of wheat from Bayswater Mill worth 2/-. In 1845, the
Manor passed to his son, Digby Latimer, the new Lord of the Manor, who went bankrupt in 1876 and had to put his estate at Sandhill and Bayswater up for sale.

It appears that at the auction in 1876 Sandhill Farm and Bayswater Mill were bought by Herbert Parsons, a banker of Elsfield,
as in an Indenture of 1894 he conveys to his daughter Miss Mary Jane Parsons of Elsfield:

All that messuage or farmhouse and farm with the several outbuildings
and parcels of land belonging thereto known as “Sandhill Farm”
in the parish of Forest Hill within the County of Oxford And also All
that water and steam mill known as “Bayswater” Mill with the
stable Orchard and Meadowland belonging thereto situate in the Parish
of Forest Hill … All of which said lands messuages hereditaments and
premises were then in the occupation of William Banting.”

Tenants of the mill

Before the Dissolution Osney Abbey leased the mill site for a rent of 3s. 4d.

In 1670 John Goodgame paid a rent of £14 for the mill and “grounds”, and in 1718 Richard Hayes leased the “overshute water corn mill” in 1718.

John Hawkes then leased the mill, and he is probably responsible for rebuilding it, as it has a stone marked “I.H. 1726”. Sarah Hawkes, wife of John, was buried at Forest Hill on 6 March 1859, and John Hawkes on 13 February 1861.

Henry Norris was the tenant here from at least 1762 to 1790. On 12 February 1755 Henry Norris, described as a miller of Forest Hill, married Jane Godfrey at St Andrew's Church in Headington, and they had seven children baptised there: Elizabeth (1755), Henry (1757), Richard (1759), Sarah (1760), Thomas (1766), Martha (1772), and Anne (1777). His wife Jane died at the age of 70 and was buried in St Andrew's churchyard on 8 May 1788.

For many years in the nineteenth century the Taggs lived here and worked the mill.
The first appearance of James Tagg senior in Headington is on
21 June 1833, when he has a son (also James) baptised at St Andrew’s Church:
his occupation was recorded in the register as “miller”.

James Tagg senior was born in Kiddington in c.1795, and can be seen living with his family at Bayswater Mill at the time of the censuses from 1841 to 1871. In 1851 he is described as a mealman and farmer of 80 acres employing seven labourers, and in 1861 as a farmer and miller. His farm was Sandhills Farm (now renamed Bayswater Farm). By 1871 his son William Tagg (28) had taken over as miller, and James (76) is described as retired.

The 1881 census for Forest Hill shows the farmer and miller William Tagg (with his age now given as 42) living at Bayswater Mill with his widowed mother and his two sisters.

By 1891 William Banting senior (who was born in Alvescot) was the occupier of “Bayswater Mill & Farm”. At the time of the census early that year, his sons Frederick (23) and William (22) were at home at the mill with their sister Annie Lucy (17) and their housekeeper. They were described as farmer’s sons; but curiously their father (50) as well as his wife Mary (47) were described as shopkeepers and living at 72 St Aldate’s Street in Oxford with four of their other children.

William Banting senior ceases to be listed in directories as a miller in 1898, which is probably when the mill shut down. Hence in the 1901 census he is described just as a farmer, and was still living at Bayswater Mill with his son George (20); meanwhile his wife Mary was still living at 72 St Aldate’s Street and working as a greengrocer with two of her daughters and her son Garnet, who is described as a farmer’s son.

William Banting senior died in 1907, and by the time of the 1911 George Banting was running a shop at 36 Magdalen Road in east Oxford with his wife.

Bayswater Brook

The Bayswater Brook, which powered the watermill, starts
at a point to the north-east of Sandhills where three unnamed streams
merge. It crosses Bayswater Road at the Bayswater Bridge, then flows
westwards just north of Barton. It crosses the northern by-pass near
Borrowmead Road, and then becomes known as the Peasmoor Brook, joining
the River Cherwell at Mesopotamia. It marks the boundary of the city
of Oxford for almost all its length.

Bayswater Windmill

As well as a watermill, there was also a windmill at Bayswater, situated
on the site of the present Townsend House near the Green Road roundabout.
It had already disappeared in 1804, as the Headington Enclosure Award
of that year describes the Bayswater Road as “branching out of the
said new Turnpike Road near to the spot where the windmill formerly stood”.

This windmill was the subject of a painting by the Oxford artist William
Turner (1789–1862). As the picture is believed to date from c.1820, it is possible that Turner
was painting from memory or copying an earlier picture.